AHC: West Slavic state (Zapadoslavia) and East Slavic state (Vostokoslavia)

Along the lines of Yugoslavia, could Pan-Slavic movements have created a West Slavic state (Zapadoslavia) and East Slavic state (Vostokoslavia)?

The East Slavic state would probably unavoidably be dominated by Russia, but depending on how liberal it is, it could have autonomy for Belarus and Ukraine. Maybe Cossack, Baltic Russian/"Novgorodian", or Siberian regional identities could split up Russia's influence.
 
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yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Along the lines of Yugoslavia, could Pan-Slavic movements have created a West Slavic state (Zapadoslavia) and East Slavic state (Vostokoslavia)?

The East Slavic state would probably unavoidably be dominated by Russia, but depending on how liberal it is, it could have autonomy for Belarus and Ukraine. Maybe Cossack, Baltic Russian/"Novgorodian", or Siberian regional identities could split up Russia's influence.
Eh, Zapadoslavia is a weird thingy... isn't this basically just Czechoslovakia? Or is Poland supposed to be part of it too? And as you said Vostokoslavia is just Russia as long as it holds Belarus and Ukraine.

You might need a pre-1900 PoD. The Yugoslav idea was discussed in Croatian, Slovenian and Serbian academic circles during the 1800s, so it wasn't like it was brand new. You might need something similar.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
Eh, Zapadoslavia is a weird thingy... isn't this basically just Czechoslovakia?
There was discussion about a Polish-Czech-Slovak confederation during World War 2. If the Soviets can’t make it pass the Curzon Line then the Allies might have encouraged its creation to create a bulwark against the Soviets.
 
Aren't these just terms for a greater Russia and a greater Poland? The demographics make other pan-slavic states pretty much unworkable.
 
With regard to a western Slavic state: Poland and Czechoslovakia did not get along very well in the interwar period. There were negotiations for a Polish-Czechoslovak confederation during the Second World War, but ultimately Stalin's opposition made this impossible. (And Benes was always lukewarm about the idea anyway; at best, he saw it as a way to induce Poland to give back the territory it had gained from Czechoslovakia after Munich. He was insistent that such a confederation not be seen as directed against the Soviet Union, whereas for the Poles, establishing a unit large enough to stand up to the Soviets was pretty much the point...) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish–Czechoslovak_confederation

With respect to an Eastern Slavic state: It existed. It was first called "the Russian Empire" and later "the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (though of course both also included conquered non-Slavic peoples).
 
With respect to an Eastern Slavic state: It existed. It was first called "the Russian Empire" and later "the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (though of course both also included conquered non-Slavic peoples).
True. But it would be interesting to see a more "open" East Slavic state where Ukrainians, Belarusians, as well as regional identities in Russia get more representation.

Possibly with a capital in Kiev, the oldest East Slavic capital after Novgorod.
 
True. But it would be interesting to see a more "open" East Slavic state where Ukrainians, Belarusians, as well as regional identities in Russia get more representation.

Possibly with a capital in Kiev, the oldest East Slavic capital after Novgorod.

Well, for the Russian Empire in its later stages, it was the official view that "White Russians" and "Little Russians" were, quite simply, Russians--with some distinctive linguistic and other features, to be sure, due to their having been torn away from the "Great Russians" by the Mongol invasion and living for centuries under Lithuanian and Polish rule--but still Russians. (Incidentally, the Russian Imperial government actually encouraged the Ukrainian cultural revival in the 1830's. Interest in "Little Russian" culture was encouraged in order to de-Polonize right-bank Ukrainians who had lived so long under Polish rule. The point in teaching them that they were "Little Russians" was not to emphasize their differences from the "Great Russians" but their differences from the Poles.)

As for the USSR, of its four original founding members, three were East Slavic (RSFSR, Ukraine, Belarus)--the Transcaucasian Federation being the fourth. But having the capital in Kiev would be out of the question--too close to the Polish border, too exposed in case of war (after all, that was why they moved the capital from Petrograd to Moscow in the first place). Anyway, it was really only in the 1930's that Stalinist historians emphasized the idea of Kievan Rus' as the common ancestor of all East Slavs.
 
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